Hello Diatribe people! I’m after some advice from people more experienced with running longer events than I am (so anyone who’s run anything longer than 3 hours )

I’m putting together a budget for a 10-hour game in Wellington, and I have no idea how to deal with food budgeting. How much should I be expecting to spend on snacks per head? Is it reasonable to expect players to bring their own lunch and/or dinner? (I’m planning on using Petone community house, and dealing with catering there seems less than feasible.) If I should be providing actual meals, how much does that cost? (I have so very many dietary restrictions, which means I have very little idea of how much regular-people food costs.)

I think for a ten hour larp you should be expecting to provide at least one main meal (but maybe both lunch and dinner and make them in-character). I don’t have any idea what the costs would be, though. (If you’re interested, the snacks budget for the game I just ran was $40 for 16 people and seemed a pretty good spread, but that was just snacks.)

I’d second one main meal, I think. But maybe a buffet-style setup could be more cost-effective than other options? Not everything would have to be hot food, and the cold food could stay there after the meal and serve as snacks.

Kingdom 1, which did a morning and afternoon session, did its lunch as a picnic. They brought a bunch of bread rolls, cheese, eggs and similar stuff, and told people to assemble their own (they had specific supplies for those with dietary restrictions). It was cheap and worked reasonably well, but you’d probably need multiple meals for a 10-hour game.